Milk production from a number of large dairy-producing member states of the EU proved more resilient than anticipated, despite the extreme heat that has engulfed much of Europe for the past two months.

Figures released by Eurostat show that milk production in Ireland, the UK and Poland increased in June despite the hot weather. The only major dairy producer to record a decline in production for June was the Netherlands.

In Ireland, June milk production stood at 920m litres, almost 1% higher than the same month last year. Despite tight grass supplies, Irish dairy farmers have been able to hold milk production over a testing month.

However, Irish milk production for the first six months of 2018 is still 1.2% behind last year at just under 3.8bn litres.

Britain

Across the Irish Sea, British dairy farmers expanded June milk production by a healthy 1.5% to just under 1.3bn litres. UK milk production for the half of the year is now on par with last year at 7.5bn litres.

In Poland, milk production for June increased just over 1% to stand at just under 1bn litres. While milk production grew in June, the pace of growth slowed significantly from recent months when production was expanding at a rate of 4% to 5% per month.

Dutch decline

In the Netherlands, milk production continues the steady trend of decline we have seen for most of 2018 as farmers are forced to cull cow numbers to meet new phosphate regulations introduced last year.

Dutch June milk production was down 1.5% on last year at just over 1.1bn litres. This is the fifth consecutive month of decline for Dutch milk output. For the first half of 2018, Dutch milk production stands at 6.9bn litres, down 1.4% year on year.

Eurostat will publish June milk production figures for Germany and France (the two largest dairy producers in Europe) later this week, which will be watched closely by dairy markets.

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